In his two years in the U.S. Air Force, Avery Castetter has traveled around the country.
Basic training was in San Antonio, Texas. Naval school for explosive ordnance disposal classes was in Destin, Florida. More training took place in Biloxi, Mississippi, and then he returned closer to home to be a recruiter assistant in Clarksville before heading to Illinois to serve with a base honor guard.
That current job allows him to travel a lot, covering from southern Wisconsin to Tennessee.
The 21-year-old Seymour native said it’s more traveling than he planned, but it has all been a great experience so far.
“With explosive ordnance disposal, it was really cool getting to do it. A lot of that stuff, no one gets to say they’ve done. We did a lot of demolition, so there’s a lot of blowing stuff up, which was fun,” he said. “But other than that, the traveling has been really cool, and I’ve met some cool people. Everywhere I go, especially down in the south, there were some interesting characters we would come across.”
Today, his younger brother, Sam Castetter, 18, leaves for basic training in San Antonio.
Sam plans to do a lot of traveling in the Air Force, too, but he will have a different job, special warfare as a combat controller.
Once he completes basic training, he said he will be all over the place, including Florida, Washington, Georgia, Arizona and Louisiana, in a span of two to three years. He will learn scuba diving, skydiving, survival and air traffic control training.
“I just figured out when Avery was doing EOD, I looked through all of those jobs and saw that one, and ever since then, I just wanted to do that,” Sam said. “It was just the coolest one, just getting around and actually doing all of the stuff, doing the training and learning how to do all of that stuff.”
Seeing his brother join the same military branch, Avery said he never imagined that would happen, but he knows Sam is up for it.
“He’s going through the same process I did, and I struggled with it physically,” Avery said. “Knowing that he was physically more capable, I knew he wouldn’t have a problem with it, that he would be better inclined to succeed at the course that he’s going to be going through.”
Sam said it will be nice to always have that in common and have that bond.
“I just can’t wait to talk about the stories we’ll both have from doing it at the end, just all of those cool experiences,” he said.
When Avery initially told his mother, Rhiannon Castetter, he was enlisting, she said, “No, you’re not.” That was a year after he had graduated from SHS in 2019.
He still went through with it, but the COVID-19 pandemic prevented his family from attending his basic training graduation in person, and they had to watch it online. Rhiannon said that was tough.
“It was hard at first to think about him going off, but he really did a good job and really set a good example for Sam and Addy (their younger sister) both that perseverance really has paid off because through COVID, it seems like they just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and everything was changing, and he was able to adjust to that,” Rhiannon said.
She said she tried to tell herself sending her second son into the military would be easier, but she has a feeling it’s not going to be.
“We’re just proud of both of them,” she said of her and her husband, Bill. “Bill’s dad served in the Navy, and I know if he was here, he would just be tickled pink to see both boys in the service, so we look forward to watching Sam on his journey in and going through all of that.”
In high school, Avery said he talked to military recruiters, and following that career path always was in the back of his mind. He, however, ended up leaning toward a job in law enforcement after graduation.
But since there weren’t many options for that at the time, he pursued his first interest and chose the Air Force.
“I think it was just the benefits and the lifestyle,” he said. “I’ve heard some stories about people being in the other branches and just didn’t really want to necessarily live that kind of lifestyle.”
Basic training was at Lackland Air Force Base for a little more than two months.
“It was really strange at the time with COVID and everything because it was just day to day how they were going to do our training and what we were doing and what we weren’t doing,” Avery said. “It was mostly just preparing us for the core values of the Air Force was their main focus and instilling that into us.”
The next stop was Sheppard Air Force Base for a lot of physical training to prepare for the next phase and ensure he was capable of carrying out the job as an EOD.
“Throughout high school, I did engineering classes and a lot of working with my hands, and I really enjoyed that, and EOD presented itself to me through special warfare recruiting,” he said. “That’s pretty much civil engineering, but you’re working with explosives and stuff, and I was like, ‘Well, that sounds exciting.’ I wanted to do something that was out there actually doing stuff rather than office work.”
Avery then settled in at Eglin Air Force Base for a couple of weeks before going home to Seymour to surprise his family for the holidays.
Once he arrived back in Florida, the pandemic delayed him starting naval school for EOD until the spring.
After doing that for a couple of months, he went a different direction and was given a list of jobs he could try.
“I picked a bunch of cool, exciting jobs that I thought would be just as good, and they were like, ‘Well, you didn’t get any of those. You’re doing a computer job.’ I was like, ‘Awesome,’” Avery said.
He wound up at Keesler Air Force Base from August 2021 to February of this year doing training for cyber transport.
“Pretty much what it entails is fixing the computer network and the phone networks and everything when those need repaired or when there’s new equipment that needs installed,” he said.
Back in the Hoosier State, Avery did recruiting at Clarksville area schools for a couple of weeks.
Then he was selected to do base honor guard at Scott Air Force Base. That started in April and will go through August.
“Basically, what we do is we go to veterans’ funerals and fold flags, we present the flags and then occasionally, we’ll do a firing party for the retirees when they pass away,” Avery said.
This is only a temporary break from his normal duties, and Avery said he is honored to do it.
“I got here and learned there are some cooler aspects to it,” he said. “We get to travel a lot with this job.”
Learning about everything Avery has experienced in the Air Force encouraged Sam to follow in his brother’s footsteps.
“As a kid, I always wanted to, and then I never really thought about it after that. But then when he joined, it’s just what I wanted to do,” Sam said. “When I learned about all of these careers, it was just what I wanted to do.”
Avery said he’s not sure how long he wants to stay in the Air Force.
“It just depends on how the next few years go with this job because I have the option of retraining and doing another job if I wanted in a few years,” he said.
Sam, on the other hand, said the plan is to serve for 20 years so he can then earn full benefits from the military and still be able to work.
“I really enjoy welding. Of course, I’ve got 20 years to decide what I want to do afterwards,” he said.
Meet the Castetters
Names: Avery and Sam Castetter
Ages: Avery is 21, and Sam is 18
Hometown: Seymour
Education: Avery graduated from Seymour High School in 2019, and Sam graduated from SHS in 2022
Occupation: Avery has been in the U.S. Air Force since 2020, and Sam leaves for basic training today
Family: Parents, Bill and Rhiannon Castetter; sister, Addy Castetter